Structural,Thermal and Luminescence Properties of AlN:Tm Thin Films Deposited on Silicon Substrate and Optical Fiber

Semiconductors - Thin films of AlN:Tm are deposited on a Si(111) and Si(100) substrates and optical fiber by rf magnetron sputtering method. 200–400 nm thick films are deposited at various...     

Photoluminescence characterization of AlGaN-GaN pseudomorphic quantum wells and calculation of strain induced bandgap shifts

The low temperature (77 K) photoluminescence characteristics of Al _x Ga_1-x N-GaN strained layer quantum wells with differentx values grown by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) were investigated. The photoluminescence spectra were useful in analyzing both quantum confinement effects and strain induced energy shifts. The strain induced shifts were found to be a strong function of aluminum compositionx. A model was developed to calculate the strain induced bandgap shifts atk = 0. The values predicted by this model which took into account the wurtzite crystal structure of the material system, were in good agreement with (i.e. within 2 meV of) the experimentally measured shifts.     

Scalable Fabrication of Metallic Nanofiber Network via Templated Electrodeposition for Flexible Electronics

Metallic nanofiber networks (MNFNs) are very promising for next‐generation flexible transparent electrodes (TEs) since they can retain outstanding optical and electrical properties during bending due to their ultralong and submicron profile. However, it is still challenging to achieve cost‐effective and high‐throughput fabrication of MNFNs with reliable and consistent performance. Here, a cost‐effective method is reported to fabricate high‐performance MNFN‐TEs via templated electrodeposition and imprint transfer. The fabricated electrodeposition template has a trilayer structure of glass/indium tin oxide/SiO₂ with nanotrenches in the insulating SiO₂ that can be utilized for repeated electrodeposition of the MNFNs, which are then transferred to flexible substrates. The fabricated TEs exhibit excellent optical transmittance (>84%) and electrical conductivity (<0.9 Ω sq^?1) and show desirable mechanical flexibility with a sheet resistance <2 Ω sq^?1 under a bending radius of 3 mm. Meanwhile, the MNFN‐TEs reproduced from the reusable template show consistent and reliable performance. Additionally, this template‐based method can realize the direct patterning of MNFN‐TEs with arbitrary conductive patterns by selective masking of the template. As a demonstration, a flexible dynamic electroluminescent display is fabricated using TEs made by this method, and the light‐emitting pattern is observable from both sides.     

Organic field-effect transistor circuits using atomic layer deposited gate dielectrics patterned by reverse stamping

We report on a reverse stamping method to produce via-holes in circuits comprising acene-based top-gate organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) having a CYTOP/Al₂O₃ (by atomic layer deposition) bilayer gate dielectric. This method relies on the weak adhesive force that exists between a small molecule acene film and a polymer to enable easy delamination of the bilayer gate dielectric by using a PDMS stamp. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this method by fabricating simple circuits using top-gate triisopropylsilylethynyl pentacene (TIPS-pentacene)/poly (triarylamine) (PTAA) OFETs.     

Vertical Phase Separation in Small Molecule:Polymer Blend Organic Thin Film Transistors Can Be Dynamically Controlled

Blending of small‐molecule organic semiconductors (OSCs) with amorphous polymers is known to yield high performance organic thin film transistors (OTFTs). Vertical stratification of the OSC and polymer binder into well‐defined layers is crucial in such systems and their vertical order determines whether the coating is compatible with a top and/or a bottom gate OTFT configuration. Here, we investigate the formation of blends prepared via spin‐coating in conditions which yield bilayer and trilayer stratifications. We use a combination of in situ experimental and computational tools to study the competing effects of formulation thermodynamics and process kinetics in mediating the final vertical stratification. It is shown that trilayer stratification (OSC/polymer/OSC) is the thermodynamically favored configuration and that formation of the buried OSC layer can be kinetically inhibited in certain conditions of spin‐coating, resulting in a bilayer stack instead. The analysis reveals here that preferential loss of the OSC, combined with early aggregation of the polymer phase due to rapid drying, inhibit the formation of the buried OSC layer. The fluid dynamics and drying kinetics are then moderated during spin‐coating to promote trilayer stratification with a high quality buried OSC layer which yields unusually high mobility >2 cm² V^?1 s^?1 in the bottom‐gate top‐contact configuration.     

Quantum Transport Simulation of Experimentally Fabricated Nano-FinFET

We have utilized the contact-block-reduction (CBR) method, which we extended to allow a charge self-consistent scheme, to simulate experimentally fabricated 10-nm-FinFET device. The self-consistent CBR simulator has been modified to simulate devices with channels along arbitrary crystallographic orientation. A series of fully quantum-mechanical transport simulations has been performed. First, the fin extension length and doping profile have been calibrated to match the experimental data. The process control window for the threshold voltage as a function of fin extension has been extracted for the considered device. Then, a set of transfer characteristics and gate leakage currents have been calculated for different drain voltages. The simulation results have been found to be in good agreement with the experimental data in the subthreshold regime. The device turn-off and turn-on behavior has been examined for different fin widths: 12 (experimental), 10, 8, and 6 nm. Finally, the subthreshold slope degradation at high temperatures has been studied     

Distributed Online Algorithms for the Agent Migration Problem in WSNs

The mobile agent paradigm has been adopted by several systems in the area of wireless sensor networks as it enables a flexible distribution and placement of application components on nodes, at runtime. Most agent placement and migration algorithms proposed in the literature, assume that the communication rates between agents remain stable for a sufficiently long time to amortize the migration costs. Then, the problem is that frequent changes in the application-level communication may lead to several non-beneficial agent migrations, which may actually increase the total network cost, instead of decreasing it. To tackle this problem, we propose two distributed algorithms that take migration decisions in an online fashion, trying to deal with fluctuations in agent communication. The first algorithm is more of theoretical value, as it assumes infinite storage to keep information about the message exchange history of agents, while the second algorithm is a refined version that works with finite storage and limited information. We describe these algorithms in detail, and provide proofs for their competitive ratio vs. an optimal oracle. In addition, we evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithms for different parameter settings through a series of simulated experiments, also comparing their results with those achieved by an optimal static placement that is computed with full (a posteriori) knowledge of the execution scenarios. Our theoretical and experimental results are a strong indication for the robustness and effectiveness of the proposed algorithms.     

Direction of arrival estimation using adaptive directional time-frequency distributions

Time-frequency distributions (TFDs) allow direction of arrival (DOA) estimation algorithms to be used in scenarios when the total number of sources are more than the number of sensors. The performance of such time–frequency (t–f) based DOA estimation algorithms depends on the resolution of the underlying TFD as a higher resolution TFD leads to better separation of sources in the t–f domain. This paper presents a novel DOA estimation algorithm that uses the adaptive directional t–f distribution (ADTFD) for the analysis of close signal components. The ADTFD optimizes the direction of kernel at each point in the t–f domain to obtain a clear t–f representation, which is then exploited for DOA estimation. Moreover, the proposed methodology can also be applied for DOA estimation of sparse signals. Experimental results indicate that the proposed DOA algorithm based on the ADTFD outperforms other fixed and adaptive kernel based DOA algorithms.     

Giant traps on the surface of hydride vapor phase epitaxy-grown free-standing GaN

Extended defects on the top surface of a 250-μm-thick free-standing GaN sample, grown by hydride vapor phase epitaxy (HVPE), were studied by deep level transient spectroscopy (DLTS) and scanning surface potential microscopy (SSPM). For comparison, similar studies were carried out on as-grown HVPE-GaN samples. In addition to the commonly observed traps in as-grown HVPE-GaN, the DLTS measurements on free-standing GaN reveal a very high concentration of deep traps (∼1.0 eV) within about 300 nm of the surface. These traps show nonexponential capture kinetics, reminiscent of those associated with large defects, that can accumulate multiple charges. The SSPM measurements clearly reveal the presence of charged microcracks on the top surface of the sample. It appears that the “giant traps” may be associated with these microcracks, but we cannot rule out the involvement of other extended defects associated with the near-surface damage caused by the polishing/etching procedure.     

New design of full band differentiators based on Taylor series

The classical central difference approximations of the derivative of a function based on Taylor series are the same as type III maximally linear digital differentiators for low frequencies. A new finite difference formula is derived which can be implemented as a full band type IV maximally linear differentiator. The differentiator is compared with type III maximally linear and type IV equiripple minimax differentiators. A modification is proposed in the design to minimise the region of inaccuracy near the Nyquist frequency edge